Chapter 42 #2
I have half a mind to hide her panties from her and even play at reaching for it. It makes her laugh, and she whips me lightly on the back of the hand with it.
“Bad dog,” she says as she slips it on.
I bark at her as she cackles all the way out the room, at which point I howl.
ISABEL
Be quiet. I can hear you in the hall.
KIERAN
* * *
I’m better rested than I care to admit when I head downstairs for dinner. It’s a standard affair, though Rocío’s family is nowhere in sight. She explains that this is the usual for her; her mom is always out meeting friends, her dad stays out late for work, Inigo just moved into his own place.
“Does it ever get lonely?” I ask. My mums made sure we had dinner together every night.
Rocío shrugs. “I’m used to it. It’s not so bad when Joaqs is here. We want to get our own place at some point.”
“Do you?” Judging everything Isabel has ever told me about the guy, that seems like a terrible idea. But what do I know?
Conversation turns to light chatter: this movie or that, a new book that Rocío is thinking of reading (The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House by Audre Lorde). Isabel drops her spoon on her plate. It clangs. Her mouth hangs open as she lifts her phone to stare at the screen.
“What? What is it?” Rocío asks.
Tears brim in Isabel’s eyes. I watch the light go out of them.
I take her phone to see what she’s looking at.
The phone beeps with one notification after the other.
It’s all texts from a group chat: a screenshot of Isabel’s last post on Instagram with the skull emoji, followed by Natalia, Luz, Ravina, Erin, and Chiara leaving the chat.
My stomach drops. How many more heartbreaks will Isabel be dealt?
Rocío’s chair scrapes the polished floor. She peers over my shoulder. “Those fucking cunts,” she mutters under her breath, and then drops down to crouch next to Isabel and grip her shoulders.
“Look at me, Sabs. Look at me. You don’t need them. You don’t need this. They don’t want you? Their loss. Fuck them. Fuck all of them.”
Isabel is shutting down again. Rocío draws her in for a tight hug.
I can’t sit there and let this happen. I stand, excusing myself from the table.
“Where are you going?” Rocío asks.
“To put a stop to this.”
Understanding passes on her face.
“No, no,” Isabel cries out. “You’re going to make it worse! Just leave it! Just—”
“The driver will take you,” Rocío says, nodding. “Go.”
She doesn’t have to tell me twice.
* * *
It’s Shirley who lets me in through the door. Everyone is out by the pool, laughing, smoking, taking pictures like nothing had ever happened. It sickens me.
“Kieran!” Cisco throws his arms in the air, happy to see me.
Jaime steps out of the water and claps me on the shoulder. “You came to your senses.”
I shrug him off. “Natalia,” I say. “We need to talk.”
Natalia narrows her eyes at me. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Get up. Now.”
She glances at Luz and Ravina, then snorts as if in disbelief. Can you believe this guy? Yeah, fucking believe it.
Natalia leads me to the pool house. All traces of my studio have been wiped clean. The desk even looks repainted.
“If you’ve come to apologize—”
I scoff. “The only one here who needs to apologize is you, Nat.”
She starts to turn away, but I pull her back. She jerks her hand away. “I’m not going to stand here and listen to you lecture me on playing nice with your pet project, Kieran. I’ve been nothing but good to you. I don’t fucking deserve this.”
“And Isabel? You think she deserves any of the things you put her through?”
Natalia crosses her arms and avoids my gaze.
“What’s your deal with her anyway?” I ask. “Why do you hate her so much?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
Natalia sighs exasperatedly. “Why does any of it matter? I don’t fucking like her.
She’s a pest. She’s always fucking there.
It never made sense to me, why my dad was always so fucking proud of her.
Oh, look at your classmate, Isabel, she’s doing so well.
Is she the top of your class? You should do better in your classes.
Oh, look at Isabel, she’s so musical, why don’t you pick the violin back up, Nat?
My whole life, I couldn’t fucking escape her.
And just when I thought I finally got away from her—” She shakes her head.
“What do you even see in her? What does she have that I don’t, that both you and my dad just fucking love so much? ”
My breathing slows. I feel sorry for her. She might have acted like a total bully, but hurt people hurt.
“It isn’t right to take that out on her,” I say quietly. “She did nothing wrong.”
“She never fucking does! You know Ravina saw you sneaking into her room at Oikos, right? During hide-and-seek. She went and followed you. Heard noises. I didn’t believe her when she told us, but when we got home, I couldn’t ignore the voice in my head telling me to check your studio. Lo and behold.”
“Nat—” I try to say I’m sorry for the way things played out, but she cuts me off with a bitter chuckle.
“I get it. I’m the big monster on the hill, and she’s the perfect little porcelain doll at risk of being smashed to pieces, that’s always how it’s fucking been!
That’s how it is with you, isn’t it? That’s how it was with my dad.
Oh, Natalia, you have so much, why can’t you just give her this one?
We didn’t raise you not to know how to share!
Oh, poor little Isabel, she grew up without a father.
Like any of that is my fucking fault! He’s the one who couldn’t keep it in his pants.
He’s the one who ruined our lives. I get to deal with it however I want to make myself feel better, Kieran.
Nobody gets to tell me otherwise. If you want to slum it with your perfect little princess, then go the fuck ahead.
But you don’t get to walk in here telling me how to live my life. My father’s done that enough.”
I can tell that’s been brewing inside of her for a long, long time. “Natalia,” I say softly, almost pleadingly. “Half of you is half of her. If you’d just open your heart and give her a chance—”
Natalia scoffs. “She is never going to be me, half or otherwise. She’s never going to be family. None of us will accept her, no matter what Dad says.” Natalia glowers. “Are we done here?”
I scan her face, those features that are so familiar to me now after years of friendship.
I don’t know how I’ve never seen the hurt and the capacity for hatred inside of her.
I commit this moment to memory. I never want to forget how she acted.
How I pleaded with her to just try. There’s no working with people like that.
There’s no helping someone who doesn’t want to be helped.
“You take care of yourself, Nat,” I say, side-stepping her to head out the door.
“Go fuck yourself, Kieran.”
A weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I can’t say I didn’t try.
I’ve never been more relieved to leave.